Methods and Apparatus for Directory Enabled Network Services

ABSTRACT

Methods and apparatus for controlling the rules of engagement between a telecommunication carrier and a customer whose network is managed by the telecommunication carrier are provided. A computer system interviews a customer by determining a set of specific questions tailored to the customer&#39;s needs, the set of specific questions based on previously stored customer information. Answers to the asked questions are stored as an entry in a master user profile. The master user profile defines the rules of engagement of how the telecommunication carrier shall operate on behalf of the customer on each subsequent transaction without the need of the customer&#39;s direct involvement on each element of the transaction. The entry has an associated event and a corresponding action to perform in response to the occurrence of the associated event. Upon receipt of an event occurrence, the corresponding action which includes interoperating with existing telecommunication carrier systems is performed.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to improved methods andapparatus for managing customer network activities, and, moreparticularly, to advantageous techniques for providing customer controlover an interaction between the customer's network and operations and atelecommunication carrier network.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Telecommunication carriers provide many services to their customers andeach of these services requires the involvement of many heterogeneoussystems to provision and maintain such services. Specifically,telecommunication carriers have telecommunication networks which connectand manage the services provided to their customers' networks. Forexample, telecommunication carriers provide services such as voice gradecommunication channels, frame relay services, nodal services, internetprotocol (IP) services, and the like. Many of these services allow for acustomer to make voice or data calls which terminate outside thecustomer's network and to receive calls which originate outside thecustomer's network. Other services provided by a telecommunicationcarrier include providing high speed data links to allow data to betransmitted externally from the customer's network and received fromexternal parties to the customer's network. Many of the facilities whichcarry voice, data, or both require change management which depends onthe individual needs of the customer.

Customers' needs vary depending on their business practices andpolicies, technologies, optimization routines, network designs,outstanding service orders, and existing service inventories. Theseneeds drive how each customer interacts with a telecommunicationcarrier. For example, one customer may emphasize providing reliableexternal network access while another customer may emphasize limitingtheir telecommunication financial expenses at the expense of servicequality. Enterprise customers may have large and complex networks whilesmaller customers may have small and simple networks. In any case,customers' needs may further depend on their own corporate demographicssuch as corporate size, their network's size, their business objectives,their financial cost structure, and the market in which they operate.

Today's interaction between customers and telecommunication carrierstypically involve a customer calling a carrier's call center or acustomer requesting a service or service modification through a sessionover the Internet provided by a telecommunication carrier's website.Each time a customer wants to make a change to an existing service ormanage an interaction between the customer's network and thetelecommunication carrier's network, a separate phone call or Internetsession is required. Each time much of the same information is requestedfrom the customer as has been previously provided during previous ordersto tailor the service to their liking. For example, a customer, becauseof its network growth, may require an additional 64 kb/sec (DS0) voicechannel to be connected to the customer's PBX network. The customercalls the telecommunication carrier's call center or logs on to thecarrier's website to make the request. Each time the customer's networkgrows, the customer has to make a request to expand the carrier'sservice requiring the customer's direct attention. Further, perhaps anadditional DS0 voice channel would put the customer over a thresholdamount of DS0 voice channels where it becomes more cost effective tolease an entire T1.5 line. Unless the carrier prompts the customer, thecustomer may miss the opportunity to optimize their connection whilesaving on telecommunication expenses. In specifying the details of theT1.5 line, the customer may have to specify many of the details whichare common to those specified on a previous T1.5 order. However, even ifthe details had commonalities with a previous T1.5 order, there existsno control system to determine which details of what order could beleveraged for the present T1.5 order.

Furthermore, many existing heterogeneous telecommunications systemsexist today which manage the interaction with customers such as aninventory system, an ordering system, a trouble reporting system, analarm system, a billing system, and the like. Over time these systemsand the services offered through these systems have become complex suchthat it becomes extremely difficult for a telecommunication carriersalesperson to be aware of all the services that could be offered to acustomer. For that matter, it becomes even more difficult to determinewhich services best fit the particular needs of the customer.

Clearly, methods and systems are needed to achieve automated customercontrol of network management activities when a particular event such ascustomer network growth, network utilization, computer virus intrusion,network failure, disaster recovery or the like occurs. Such automatedcontrol of customer network management activities should reflect thecustomer's business policies and procedures in addition to thecustomer's optimization routines, the customer's network designs,customer's services ordered, and the customer's existing inventories.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides software to allow a telecommunicationcarrier customer to specify particular network actions which aretriggered by the occurrence of a specified network event. Similarly,multiple events may be specified to trigger one or more specifiednetwork actions or operations. A network action may include, forexample, automatically ordering additional network bandwidth when anevent is generated based on receiving a network congestion condition.The network action may be performed in such a way to consider thecustomer's business policies and procedures, the customer's optimizationroutines, the customer's network designs, the customer's previouslyordered services, and the customer's existing inventories.

For example, a policy may be in place to only order additional networkcapacity at the end of the company's budget cycle even if networkcongestion reaches a predefined threshold. Another example may includespecifying a person or a select group of people to be notified whenevera specified event occurs or whenever a specified action is triggered.Such notification media may include e-mail, pager, telephone, or othersuitable notification media.

To these ends, the present invention includes the creation of a masteruser profile on a per customer basis which contains the rules ofengagement of how the telecommunication carrier shall operate on behalfof a customer. A wizard program module is utilized to determine a set ofquestions to ask the customer. The questions are selected from a rulesdirectory and tailored to the customer's needs by being based onpreviously stored customer information. The wizard program receivescustomer answers and stores them in the form of one or more entries in amaster user profile. Each entry has an associated event and acorresponding action representing an operation to perform in response toan occurrence of the associated event. Upon the occurrence of an event,an asynchronous trigger module retrieves the master user profileassociated with the customer for which the event was received andperforms the action corresponding to the occurrence of the associatedevent.

The present invention advantageously reduces response time intervalsbetween taking action and the occurrence of a network event. Additionalbenefits of the present invention include providing predictable andrepeatable behavior by removing human elements from each transaction andenforcing rules of engagement between a customer and thetelecommunication carrier to ensure a consistent service offering to thecustomer.

A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as,further features and advantages of the invention, will be apparent fromthe following Detailed Description and the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network in which the present inventionmay be advantageously employed.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram illustrating functional software componentsin accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary decision tree constructed by a profilewizard in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary master user profile in accordance withthe present invention.

FIG. 5A is a table containing an exemplary list of actions that may beperformed in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 5B is a table containing an exemplary list of events that may beperformed in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a method of manifesting a customerrelationship embodied within an active master customer profile.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention now will be described more fully with reference tothe accompanying drawings, in which several presently preferredembodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, beembodied in various forms and should not be construed as limited to theembodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided sothat this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fullyconvey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network 100 having customer networks110A-110C, a telecommunication service provider's operations andmaintenance network 120, and a managed network 130 designed to carryvoice and data traffic between customer networks and external tocustomer networks. The customer networks 110A-110C typically arenetworks of business customers which contract for services such asasynchronous transfer mode (ATM) frame relay services, nodal services,virtual private network (VPN), voice circuit services, disaster recoveryservices, and the like from the telecommunications service provider.

Although multiple customer networks are shown in FIG. 1, customernetwork 110A is representative of the other customer networks and isdescribed in more detail. Customer network 110A may include aserver/workstation 150 which represents one or more servers,workstations, and other network devices and a communication device 152which represents a mobile or land line telephone, pager, fax machine,palm computer, or the like. The server/workstation 150 and communicationdevice 152 may connect to the customer network through wire, wireless ora combination of wire and wireless connections. Customer network 110Amay include a private branch exchange (PBX) 153 to connect trunkservices to the managed network 130 for carrying voice and data traffic.It is noted that customers may have multiple heterogeneous networks suchas customer A, for example, which utilizes PBX support services fornetwork 110A and Centrex services for network 110B.

The managed network 130 includes the interconnectivity network 160 and avariety of exemplary communication devices. Depending on the subscribedservice, managed network 130 may represent an ATM wide area network, apublic switched telephone network (PSTN), a high speed packet networkutilizing an internet protocol (IP), and the like.

The operations and maintenance network 120 provides services and themanagement of those services to customers. The operations andmaintenance network includes computers 130, 132, 134, 136, 138, 139, and140 which are connected together by network 144. Computer 130 runs abilling application which tracks the accrued customer costs forsubscribed services and issues bills to subscribing customers. Computer132 runs an alarm application which tracks and reports occurrences ofalarms affecting subscribed services within managed network 160 and theinterfaces between a customer network and the telecommunication serviceprovider network. Computer 134 runs a trouble reporting and testapplication which allows customers to report problems with subscribedservices and track the resolution of those reported problems.Additionally, the trouble reporting and test application provides thecustomer with mechanisms to test customer subscribed circuits.

Computer 136 runs an ordering application to allow customers to add,remove, and modify offered telecommunication services. The orderingapplication receives the order request and distributes the necessarywork requests to complete the order request. Computer 138 runs aninventory application which tracks all the customer's subscribedservices on one customer network or across multiple customer networkswhich may span multiple geographical locations. For example, as shown inFIG. 1, a first customer, Customer A, maintains first and secondnetworks 110A and 110B, respectively.

The inventory application also stores a history of services purchased bya customer. Computer 139 runs a management and traffic reporting systemwhich collects traffic statistics on each customer's connection to themanaged network 130. The management and traffic reporting systemdetermines on a per customer basis, for example, voice circuitutilization, bandwidth utilization, the data rate offered by thecustomer to the managed network versus the data rate purchased by thecustomer, and the like.

Computer 140 runs a directory enable network services (DENS) application142 in accordance with the present invention. As described in furtherdetail in connection with the discussion of FIGS. 2-5 below, the DENSapplication 142 provides a three phase approach to managing subscribedservices relative to customer needs to define a customer relationship.The first phase includes interviewing the customer about the way atelecommunication carrier needs to act on behalf of the customer. Theinterview is driven by a profile wizard which constructs a dynamicdecision tree. The dynamic decision tree is tailored to the customer asdescribed in accordance with FIG. 3. After completing the interview, amaster customer profile is created on behalf of the customer asdescribed in connection with the disclosure of FIG. 4. The mastercustomer profile is active because it may contain instructions to takean action upon the occurrence of an event generated by the operationsand maintenance network 120 or the managed network 130 on behalf of thecustomer without involving direct customer attention. The mastercustomer profile acts as a proxy on behalf of the customer. Thus, themaster customer profile dictates the relationship between the customerand all the customer's users and systems with the telecommunicationcarrier and its private systems such as billing, ordering, inventory andthe like according to the events and optional conditions defined withinthe master customer profile. The proxy ensures limited and secure accessto the private systems.

The second phase includes receiving events based upon networkoperations, customer behavior, and the like. The third phase includesperforming a corresponding action in response to an event received bythe DENS application 142. The corresponding action may be proactive orreactive. A proactive action applies to a new service order and mayrequire satisfying additional predetermined conditions in response tothe received event. For example, if a customer's network operator placesan order for an additional DS0, the proactive action checks thecustomer's current inventory to determine if adding the new DS0 exceedsa threshold of DS0s. If so, the proactive action would automaticallyorder an entire T1.5 and transfer the existing DS0s to the new T1.5 tosave the customer expenses. A reactive action applies to existingservice subscriptions and like a proactive action may optionally includeexecuting additional predetermined conditions in response to thereceived event. For example, a reactive action includes an action toconvert all DS0 groups having more than 8 DS0s to a T1.5 in response toan event to analyze DS0 groups for a particular customer. Each actionwhether it is proactive or reactive may vary and may involve access tothe private systems. Examples of events and actions will be describedfurther in connection with the discussion of FIGS. 5A and 5B.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplarynetworks and overall implementation depicted in FIG. 1 may vary, andthat the depicted example is solely for illustrative purposes and is notmeant to imply architectural limitations with respect to the presentinvention. It is noted that although FIG. 1 shows applications runningon individual computers 130, 132, 134, 136, 138, 139, and 140, eachapplication may be distributed to run on a group of networked computersas well.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram 200 illustrating the functional softwarecomponents of a directory enabled network services (DENS) application142 in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention.The DENS application 142 includes an inventory interface 210, a rulesdirectory 230, a profile wizard 240, an active user profile database250, an asynchronous trigger module 270, and a network interface 280which includes interfaces to systems such as AT&T's integrated ordermanager, e-maintenance, an alarm viewer, and a flow through managementsystem.

During an interview with a customer, the customer using a web browser,for example, accesses the profile wizard 240 through a business portalinterface such as AT&T's BusinessDirect®. For example, the customer maylogon on to the BusinessDirect® application over the Internet. Thebusiness portal interface forwards a uniform resource locator (URL)representing the server location of the profile wizard 240 to thecustomer's web browser over existing IP protocols. The profile wizard240 interviews the customer on a per service basis by prompting thecustomer with questions and receiving answers from the customer. Theprofile wizard 240 determines customer tailored questions by accessinghistorical information concerning the customer, accessing the customer'ssubscribed services through the inventory interface 210, and retrievingapplicable questions from the rules directory 230 based on thehistorical and other learned customer information and responses providedby the customer on previously asked questions. Historical informationmay include information gathered from previous interactions between thecustomer and the telecommunication carrier. The rules directory 230 istypically stored on permanent storage such as a disk and written torandom access memory (RAM) during application runtime for quick access.

An example of the decision tree is shown in FIG. 3 and described furtherbelow. The wizard constructs the questions from rules in the rulesdirectory and asks the customers only those questions that pertain totheir specific situation. Examples of questions include:

-   -   Would you like to perform soft or hard disconnect when you        decide to disconnect service?    -   Would you like to upgrade existing locations that have more than        8 DS0s to a T1.5?    -   Would you allow DS0 orders that put your DS0 group over 8 DS0s        per location, or would you like to convert the orders to T1.5?    -   Do you want AT&T to upgrade your permanent virtual circuits        (PVC) which have been operating at data rates that exceed        committed information rate (CIR)?    -   Do you want AT&T to detect virus conditions using traffic        signatures and alert you to the sources of virus-like traffic?

After completing the interview with the customer, the profile wizard 240writes an active master profile into the user profile database 250. Theactive master profile dictates the communication with the customer andmay contain actions to perform in response to events received. Thespecific actions and events are determined by the customer responsesgathered for each individual service to which an interview wasconducted. An example of an active master profile is shown in FIG. 4 anddescribed further below. The event correlator 260 periodically reads theuser profile database 250 to determine whether an event should beprocessed by the DENS system for the specific customer. The eventcorrelator 260 filters duplicate or inconsequential events which mayarise because of lack of interest in the profile as well as networkconditions such as alarms due to failure of interdependent technologies.

The network interface 280 may include software interfaces to systemsoftware operating the managed network 130, the maintenance andoperations network 120, and/or software applications. The networkinterface 280 provides access to the DENS system for receiving eventsand executing actions. In addition to generating events due to anetworks state, the system software also supports manual entry of eventsby telecommunication operators or customers. When an event is receivedby the event correlator 260 through the network interface 280, the eventcorrelator 260 determines whether the received event should be filteredor further processed. If it is to be further processed, the event issent to the asynchronous trigger module 270 where it extracts the mastercustomer number (MCN) from the event. The asynchronous trigger module270 retrieves an associated active master profile by issuing a databasequery containing the MCN on the user profile database 250. Theasynchronous trigger module 270 reads the active master profile todetermine if the received event in combination with optionalpredetermined conditions in the master profile is satisfied to result inperforming or causing to perform the associated action. If conditionsare satisfied, the asynchronous trigger module 270 executes theassociated action stored in the active master profile. Depending on theaction, the asynchronous trigger module 270 causes the performance ofthe action by issuing calls through network interface 280 or theinventory interface 210.

The profile wizard 240, the event correlator 260, the asynchronoustrigger module 270, and these interfaces 210, 220, and 280 areimplemented in software and are executed by the processor in thecomputer 140.

An example of an application of the previously described system followsand is illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4. A customer may have multiplenetworks such as one in Raleigh, another in Cincinnati, and another inSan Jose. That customer may want to define rules of engagement whichwill apply when any of the customer's local network operators need tomodify the services which are provided by their telecommunicationcarrier. For example, the customer may want to impose many requirementson the customer's local network operators when modifying or orderingvoice circuits. One requirement may include automatically upgrading acommitted information rate (CIR), if the permanent virtual circuit (PVC)traffic rate exceeds the CIR. A second requirement may includesatisfying a condition before issuing an action such as analyzing thecustomer's current service inventory. For example, if a customerrequests a new DS0 and after the DENS system analyzes the number of DS0sto which the customer currently subscribes, the customer may requirethat any new DS0 requests that exceed the total of DS0s within a trunkgroup over a threshold such as 8 DS0s would automatically change to arequest to order a T1.5 and to convert the existing DS0s into channelsto be carried over the newly ordered T1.5. A third requirement mayinclude sending an email or page to the customer'stelecommunications/information technology director every time a networkoperator orders a new T1.5 trunk. A fourth requirement may includespecifying the default settings for elements required when ordering anew service. A fifth requirement may include requiring AT&T to providevirus alerts and protection using a traffic signature.

It is recognized that a customer may have many more requirements to bedefined by the rules of engagement between the customer and thetelecommunications service provider. For example, a customer may requirethat a periodic report be run on the inventory of services beingsubscribed to determine if the voice and data circuits can be combinedbetween the different customer sites to achieve cost savings and that ananalysis on all of the customer sites be run to determine if they allhave disaster recovery options (DRO) specified. The customer may wantany of the customer's sites that don't subscribe to DRO to subscribe toDRO at the same level as utilized by the most protected site.

To ensure that the customer rules of engagement are satisfied, thecustomer interacts with the DENS system to create an active masterprofile, also referred to as a proxy, to operate on the customer'sbehalf on each order transaction or event without the customer's directinvolvement on each element of the transaction. Returning to theexample, the customer first logs on to a business portal such asBusinessDirect®. The customer may access the business portal throughvarious means including the Internet, an interactive voice response(IVR) unit, or other suitable medium. The business portal invokes theprofile wizard 240. The profile wizard 240 communicates with the rulesdirectory 230 and an inventory interface 210 to determine a dynamicdecision tree tailored for the customer as shown in FIG. 3. Through theinventory interface 210, the profile wizard 240 determines that thecustomer has three locations and the inventory of services includesframe, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), IP, and switched voice, forexample. The inventory interface 210 allows the profile wizard 240 tocollect data from many heterogeneous telecommunication systems such asan enterprise wide inventory system like AT&T's Database of Record(DBOR). Based on the information gathered through the inventoryinterface, the profile wizard 240 constructs a decision tree containingquestions used to interview the customer. It is noted that there are twolevels of dynamic decision tree construction. The first level includesdetermining a set of questions and their content relevant to thecustomer. The second level includes presenting a question from the setof relevant questions depending on the customer's response to previouslypresented questions and the current state of learned informationgathered about the customer.

Continuing with the example, FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary decisiontree 300 constructed by the profile wizard in accordance with thepresent invention. The decision tree 300 includes an ordering decisionbranch 310 which addresses the second and third customer requirements, acongestion decision branch 320 which addresses the first customerrequirement, a security decision branch 330 which address the fourthcustomer requirement, and a disconnect decision branch which addressesthe telecommunication carrier's behavior when the customer unsubscribesfrom a particular service. Each decision branch illustrates the questionprogression to ask the logged on customer. By the DENS applicationanalyzing the customer's inventory, the DENS application knows that thecustomer subscribes to DS0s, PVCs, and IP services. As a result, theprofile wizard 240 constructs the decision tree 300 as shown.

Referring to the ordering decision branch 310, the profile wizard 240constructs question 311 “Would you allow DS0 channel orders that putyour DS0 group over 8 DS0s per location?” If the answer to question 311is yes, the profile wizard 240 constructs question 312 “Would you liketo upgrade locations that have more than 8 DS0s to a T1.5 line?” If theanswer to question 312 is yes, the profile wizard 240 constructsquestion 314 “Would you like to disconnect all DS0s once the T1.5 lineis turned up?” If the answer to question 316 is yes, the profile wizard240 constructs question 316 “How would you like to be notified about theDS0 to T1.5 conversion? Email, PDA, IVR, web, or no notification?” Backto question 311, if the answer is no, the profile wizard 240 constructsquestion 313 “Would you like to convert DS0 orders putting you over the8 DS0 limit to T1.5 line orders? If the answer to question 313 is yes,question 314 is constructed. If the answer to question 313 is no, aninternal action to cancel the DS0 order is written to the master profileas described below in connection with FIG. 4. Back to question 312, ifthe answer is no, no special handling is recorded for this customer.Back to question 314, if the answer is no, an error is reported and theprofile wizard communicates the error to the customer.

Referring to the congestion decision branch 320, the profile wizard 240constructs question 322 “Would you like AT&T to upgrade your PVCsoperating at data rates in excess of CIR?” If the answer to question 322yes, the profile wizard 240 constructs question 324 “If a new CIRexceeds port capacity, would you like AT&T to upgrade your port aswell?” If the answer to question 324 is yes, the profile wizard 240constructs question 326 “If port capacity exceeds physical transport,would you like AT&T to upgrade your transport?” If the answer toquestion 326 is yes, the profile wizard 240 constructs the question 328“How would you like to be notified about the upgrade? Email, PDA, VR,web, or no notification?” Returning to question 322, if the answer toquestion 322 is no, no special handling is required for this customer.Returning to question 324, if the answer to question 324 is no, anaction to upgrade the PVC with a precondition to upgrade only if portcapacity handles traffic are entered into the action field andprecondition fields of the master profile as described in FIG. 4.

Turning to the security decision branch 330, the profile wizard 240constructs question 332 “Would you like AT&T to attempt to detect virussources by monitoring traffic ratio imbalance (TRI)?” If the answer toquestion 332 is yes, the profile wizard 240 constructs question 334 “Iftraffic imbalance is detected, would you like AT&T to terminate thesource of traffic if it matches a virus signature?” If the answer toquestion 334 is yes, the profile wizard 240 constructs question 336 “Howwould you like to be notified about the termination? Email, PDA, IVR,web, or no notification?”

Turning to the disconnect decision branch 340, the profile wizard 240constructs question 342 “Would you like service disconnects to beperformed using the soft disconnect process?” If the answer to question342 is yes, the profile wizard constructs question 344 “How would youlike to be notified upon completion of the disconnect process? Email,PDA, IVR, web, or no notification?”

The profile wizard 240 tracks each selection made by the customer. Afterall the selections are made as described above in connection with FIG.3, the profile wizard 240 creates a master profile for this customerstoring events, actions, and optional conditions. The profile wizard 240stores the master profile into the user profile database 250. FIG. 4illustrates an exemplary active master profile 400 in accordance withthe present invention. The active master profile 400 corresponds to thecustomer answering the questions illustrated in FIG. 3. Row 410illustrates an exemplary entry concerning an ordering task when thattask includes ordering a DS0. The event column 420 illustrates theevent, the arrival of which will initiate the DENS application todetermine whether to run the action or actions listed in action column440. The precondition column 430 illustrates conditions that must besatisfied before the actions in column 440 are performed.

Referring to row 410, the ORDERING DS0 event element entry wasdetermined by the existence of the ordering DS0 decision tree branch310. The customer in the example, answered yes to the first question“Would you allow DS0 orders that put your DS0 group over 8 DS0s perlocation?” The customer also answered yes to the question 312 “Would youlike to upgrade locations that have more than 8 DS0s to a T1.5?” Byanswering yes to question 312, the “Order T1.5” action was determined inthe action column 440 and the precondition “DS0 exceed 8” was determinedin precondition column 430. The customer also answered yes to question314 “would you like to disconnect all DS0s once the T1.5 is turned up?”By answering yes to question 314, the actions “Disconnect the DS0s” and“Cancel DS0 order” were determined in the action column 440. Thecustomer requests email notification to be sent to email addresscustdir@cus.com by answering question 316 “How would you like to benotified about the DS0 to T1.5 conversion?” By answering question 316, a“yes” is entered in notification column 460, the email address isentered in the type of notification column 460, and “internet” isentered in the medium for notification column 470. Although left blankfor the ordering row 410, column 480 represents service specific datafor the asynchronous trigger module 270 to perform its analysis, ifneeded. Similarly, decision branches 320, 330, and 340 translate intoentries illustrated in rows 412, 414, and 416 to complete the customer'smaster profile. Upon completion of the customer interview, the profilewizard 240 writes the active master profile 400 to the user profiledatabase 250.

Now that the customer's master profile has been created in the userprofile database 250, the DENS application can operate as a proxy onbehalf of the customer. For example, if the customer's network operatorin Cincinnati orders a DS0 through an ordering system such as AT&T'sIntegrated Order Manager (IOM), the IOM creates an event called ORDERINGDS0 for the Cincinnati site. The event along with the customer MCN issent to the event correlator 260. The event correlator 260 analyzes themaster user profile to determine if the customer has set the DS0 EXCEED8 precondition by issuing a request through the inventory interface 210to an inventory management system. If set, the event correlator 260extracts current inventory for the Cincinnati site and calculates thetotal number of DS0s. If the order and inventory exceed the 8 threshold,the precondition DS0 EXCEED 8 is satisfied. Upon determining thecustomer's inventory consists of 8 DS0s which equals a predeterminedthreshold such that ordering a T11.5 would be a cost savings alternativethan ordering one more DS0, the asynchronous trigger module 270 issues arequest to the order system to either indicate to the network operatorthat a T1.5 trunk will be ordered according to the customer'srequirements embodied in the active master profile. It is noted that itis contemplated by the present invention to give customers the abilityto override actions in the master profile. For example, such an overridemay result in prompting the network operator to determine whether hewould like to override the master profile rule of automatically orderinga T1.5 and just order an additional DS0.

The above examples are merely exemplary. As an alternative example,there may be two customers; customer ABC and customer XYZ. CustomerABC's business is driven by offering premiere customer service whereascustomer XYZ's business is driven primarily by its costs. As suchcustomer ABC may request that a telecommunication carrier grow shrinkits voice and data capacity as needed to meet its customers demands thatmay fluctuate according to different holidays throughout the year.Customer ABC would be willing to pay the telecommunication carrier forreceiving such a service since the capacity expansion and contractioncan be performed without the involvement of the customer.

In contrast, customer XYZ's may want to exert complete control over thegrowth or contraction of voice and data capacity in network to precludeeven the smallest transaction cost. The present invention advantageouslyaddresses the needs of such diverse customers.

Upon reception of the event and satisfaction of the precondition, theasynchronous trigger module 270 retrieves the action corresponding tothe ORDERING DSO event from the active master profile. In this example,the actions are to order a T1.5, disconnect the existing DS0s, andcancel the new DS0 order. The asynchronous trigger module 270 performsthe operations to complete these actions.

FIG. 5A is a table 500 containing an exemplary non-exhaustive list ofactions that may be performed in accordance with the present invention.Column 510 contains events that are received by the event correlator260. Column 520 contains a short description of the corresponding eventin column 510. For example, event 512 TRAFFIC RATIO IMBALANCE isreceived by the event correlator 260 when, as shown by event description522, a system external to the DENS application detects that the ratio ofdenial of service traffic relative to all traffic exceeds a customer setratio.

FIG. 5B is a table 550 containing an exemplary non-exhaustive list ofactions that may be performed in accordance with the present invention.Column 560 contains actions to be performed or caused to be performed bythe asynchronous trigger module 270. Column 570 contains a shortdescription of the corresponding action in column 560. For example,action 562 UPGRADE PVC is explained by short description 572 whichstates to “perform a MACD order to upgrade PVC CIR based on the nextavailable PVC speed and not to exceed the ports capacity rules.”

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a method 600 of manifesting acustomer relationship embodied within a master user profile. At step610, the DENS system receives a logon request from a customer. At step620, a DENS wizard is initiated to conduct an automated interview of thecustomer. The interview contains questions which may be tailored to theparticular customer based on any combination of historical customerinformation, customer inventory of presently subscribed services, andanswers to previously answered questions. At step 630, the customeranswers are stored as entries in a master user profile for the customer.Each entry contains an event, one or more optional predeterminedconditions, and an action to execute upon the occurrence of an event andsatisfaction of the optional predetermined conditions. At step 640, themethod 600 waits for the occurrence of an event which is stored in themaster user profile for the customer.

Referring to step 650, once an event is received, a master user profilecorresponding to the master customer number contained in the receivedevent is retrieved. At step 660, an entry of the master user profilecorresponding to the received event is analyzed to determine whetherthere are optional predetermined conditions that need to be evaluated.If there are no optional conditions to evaluate, the method proceeds tostep 690 where the action corresponding to the received event in themaster user profile is executed. Upon execution of the action, themethod proceeds to step 640 to wait for the next event.

Returning to step 660, if it had been determined that there are optionalconditions to evaluate, the method 600 proceeds to step 670 where allthe optional conditions are evaluated. These optional conditions mayinclude evaluating the current state of the customer's network. At step680, the method determines whether all the optional conditions aresatisfied. If so, the method 600 proceeds to step 690. If not, themethod 600 proceeds to step 640 to wait for the next event.

It should be understood that although in the preferred embodiment of theinvention the profile wizard, event correlator, asynchronous triggermodule and their corresponding interfaces are implemented in software,in other embodiments of the invention all or portions of the instructionsteps executed by these software portions may be resident in any ofthese components in firmware or in other program media in connectionwith one or more computers, which are operative to communicate withexisting telecommunication systems.

While the present invention has been disclosed in the context of variousaspects of presently preferred embodiments, it will be recognized thatthe invention may be suitably applied to other environments consistentwith the claims which follow.

1. A method comprising: responsive to a determination that a permanentvirtual circuit of a customer is operating at a data rate in excess of acommitted information rate, automatically reporting that the permanentvirtual circuit has been automatically upgraded, the permanent virtualcircuit automatically upgraded responsive based upon a defined rulestored in a master user profile, the defined rule adapted to cause anautomatic addition of a DS0 channel that causes a count of DS0 channelsto exceed a threshold of DS0 channels, which causes an automatic orderto transfer existing DS0 channels to a new T1.5 trunk.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: for the permanent virtual circuit,automatically reporting voice circuit utilization, bandwidthutilization, and a data rate offered by the customer to a managednetwork versus a data rate purchased by the customer.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: responsive to customer answers totelecommunications service questions, modifying the master user profile.4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: creating a dynamicdecision tree of questions to ask the customer, the decision treedescribing a progression of questions to ask the customer consideringpotential customer answers, the dynamic decision tree comprising anordering decision branch, a congestion decision branch, a securitydivision branch, and a disconnect decision branch, the disconnectdecision branch adapted to automatically perform at least one actionresponsive to the customer unsubscribing from a particular service, themaster user profile based upon answers of the customer to questions fromthe dynamic decision tree.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:receiving an event to be matched with an associated event stored in themaster user profile; and based upon a found rule in the master userprofile corresponding to the received event, performing an action inresponse to the received event.
 6. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: based upon a found rule stored in the master user profile,performing an action consistent with business policies and procedures ofthe customer, the action determined via an event correlator adapted tofilter duplicate events that arise because of an alarm caused by afailure.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: storing a mastercustomer number uniquely identifying the customer in the master userprofile and wherein a received event associated with the permanentvirtual circuit includes the master customer number.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: retrieving the master user profile based ona stored master customer number carried in a received event associatedwith the permanent virtual circuit; and selecting an action to performupon matching the received event with an associated event in theretrieved master user profile, the action selected responsive to adetected virus condition, the virus condition detected via trafficsignatures, the action comprising an alert of the detected viruscondition.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising: sending one ormore requests to a private telecommunication system associated with thepermanent virtual circuit for an action to be performed on the privatetelecommunication system, the action determined based upon a found ruleof the master user profile, the found rule corresponding to a receivedevent associated with the permanent virtual circuit.
 10. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: responsive to the master user profile,automatically detecting that a ratio of denial of service trafficrelative to all traffic exceeds a customer set ratio, the customer setratio associated with the permanent virtual circuit.
 11. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: notifying the customer to increase asubscribed data rate of the permanent virtual circuit to match anestablished data rate need of the customer.
 12. The method of claim 1,further comprising: received an event defined in the master userprofile, the event associated with the permanent virtual circuit, theevent received from one of a billing system, an alarm system, a troubleticket and test system, an ordering system, an inventory system, or anetwork of the customer.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein: the masteruser profile is adapted to define rules of engagement of how atelecommunication carrier shall operate on behalf of the customer ontransactions associated with the permanent virtual circuit withoutsubsequent direct involvement of the customer regarding thetransactions.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein: entries in the masteruser profile have an associated event and an action representing anoperation to perform in response to an occurrence of an associatedevent.
 15. The method of claim 1, wherein: customer answers stored inthe master user profile comprise an inventory of presently customersubscribed services, history of services purchased by the customer, oranswers to previously answered questions.
 16. The method of claim 1,wherein: an event defined in the master user profile is an indicationthat the customer is offering data traffic over the permanent virtualcircuit at data rates in excess of a subscribed data rate and wherein anaction defined in the master user profile comprises automaticallynotifying the customer to increase the subscribed data rate to match anestablished data rate need of the customer.
 17. The method of claim 1,wherein: an entry of the master user profile comprises a predeterminedcondition to be satisfied in addition to receiving an event occurrencebefore performing an action, the predetermined condition comprising adetermination that a combination of voice and data circuits of differentcustomer sites achieves a cost savings and that all sites of thecustomer have specified disaster recovery options.
 18. A methodcomprising: running a wizard program, the wizard program adapted,responsive to a received indication of network congestion, causeadditional network bandwidth to be automatically ordered at an end of abudget cycle of a company, the indication of network congestion receivedprior to the end of the budget cycle, the additional network bandwidthordered based upon a rule defined in a master customer profile, the ruleindicative of a customer-provided instruction to order additionalbandwidth upon occurrence of an event indicative of network congestion,the wizard program adapted to create a reporting rule in the mastercustomer profile, the reporting rule adapted to, responsive to anautomatic detection that a ratio of denial of service traffic relativeto all traffic exceeds a customer set ratio, automatically report thedenial of service traffic to the customer.
 19. The computer system ofclaim 18, further comprising: an event correlator adapted for receivingan event and determining that the event correlates to a found rule inthe master customer profile, the event correlator adapted to filterduplicate events; and an asynchronous trigger module adapted for:reading the master customer profile based on the event; andautomatically determining to order the additional network bandwidth. 20.A method comprising: responsive to a determination that a permanentvirtual circuit is operating at a data rate in excess of a committedinformation rate, automatically reporting that the permanent virtualcircuit of a customer has been automatically upgraded, the permanentvirtual circuit automatically upgraded responsive based upon a definedrule stored in a master user profile, the defined rule adapted to causean addition of a channel that causes a count of channels to exceed athreshold of channels, which causes an automatic order to transferexisting channels to a new trunk.